About Me

Personal Finance Student

30 year old stay-at-home wife and mother struggling to pay down debt and create a life of financial freedom.

====

2009 4Q GOALS

[ ] Get our CC/overdraft debt to under $33K.
[ ] Start the $20 Challenge for 2009.
[ ] Be consistent in living our budget - no more overdraft!

=====

PROGRESS REPORT TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM

Total Debts...September 2009
Credit cards & Overdraft: $34,570
Student Loans: $2,572
401K Loans: $2,823
Car Loan: $12,747

Total Freedom Account: $74
Total Emergency Fund: $0
Total Retirement: $55,453

=====

Debt Payments

August 16th, 2008 at 11:39 am

Yesterday I paid the following:

Bank of America: $210 (min. $190)
Chase: $65 (min. $42)
Chase: $60 (min. $41)
0% Bank of America: $56 (min. $46)
0% Citi: $40 (min $30)

We got a credit from Verizon and changed our car insurance coverage so we were under budget for both of these expenses. I'm putting the difference towards a second Target card payment on Monday.

Target: $189 (second payment this month)

I've heard that paying an extra $10-20 above the minimum can make a big difference in paying off credit cards so this is the strategy I'm taking. I'm focusing on the highest interest to pay off first, but everything else will get an additional $10-20 as well.

Happy Weekend Everyone!

Posted in Debt Reduction Tracker | 3 Comments »

3 Responses to “Debt Payments”

LuxLiving Says:
August 16th, 2008 at 06:30 pm

That's one way of doing it! We just picked one to focus paying off first and hit it with all the extra we could until it was blipped off the radar and then we did the snowball method on the next highest interest rate.

Good for you on making changes & putting the resulting dollars to debt!!! Way to go!
littlemama Says:
August 17th, 2008 at 08:03 am

We picked one to focus on also. It really gave us the motivation we needed to pay them off as quickly as possible. We did the DR plan. Have you read Total Money Makeover?
Personal Finance Student Says:
August 17th, 2008 at 12:28 pm

LuxLiving and littlemama: Thanks for sharing what y'all did. I am focused on paying the highest interest rates off first with the bulk of the "extra" money I have, but in addition to adding a little to the others cards' minimum payments. I haven't read Total Money Makeover, is that by Dave Ramsey? I haven't read any of his books, but have read other financial books (Suze Orman, David Bach, etc.). It was Suze Orman (in 9 Steps to Financial Freedom) that mentions what a difference an extra $10 or $20 can make when paying down debt.

Personal Finance Student

Learning how to climb from debt to financial freedom at the School of Hard Knocks.

Debt Payments

3 Responses to “Debt Payments”

Leave a Reply